Connecting arrangements and contact pins of the aforementioned type are known from the prior art and are, for example, used in motor vehicle engineering. In this case an electrical signal is passed in or out through the contact pins or the connecting arrangement from a sealed region, such as a cylinder head or transmission, without leaks occurring and oil or a different fluid being able to escape through the contact chambers.
Because of stringent environmental protection directives in motor vehicle engineering, it must be ensured that engine and transmission oil can not pass into the environment at a cable bushing. Thus an electrical cable with a plurality of wires cannot be conveyed to the outside in a sealed cable bushing, as was previously conventional, as oil can pass to the outside between the outer cable insulation and the individual wires. While cables have been developed which are provided with a sealing material between the wires in order to prevent creepage of the oil within the cables, the production costs of these cables are so high that their use cannot be considered in large numbers in the automotive industry.
The use of these expensive cables is avoided by the device of U.S. Pat. No. 4,349,241. This document describes a plug-and-socket connector arrangement in which a connector and a mating connector are connected to each other in a fluid-tight manner. The connector comprises contact pins which are inserted into a contact chamber in a partition formed by the connector. The contact pins are held in the partition by a latching connection. A mating connector-side contact portion of the contact pin is configured as a pin, while another is configured as a lead clamp.
A further plug-and-socket connector arrangement is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,820,204. In this plug-and-socket connector arrangement electrical conductors are connected to each other by a plurality of contact pins.
It is also known from the prior art to arrange the contact pin in a contact chamber so as to be electrically isolated, for example, in the cylinder head wall. The contact chamber is sealed by an O-ring and assembled in a corresponding seat between contact chamber and contact pin, so that no fluid can escape. A respective electrical cable is connected to the contact portion of the contact pin on either side of the partition, so that an electrical signal can be transmitted via the contact pin.
With the known contact pins and connecting arrangements, escape of oil or other fluids through the contact chamber is effectively prevented but in modern units, such as internal-combustion engines or transmissions, the number of signals to be transmitted has greatly increased. Thus ever more sensors are being used within the units and mechanical valve drives are being replaced by electromechanical ones. As a contact pin is required for each signal to be transmitted, and often only a small area is available for attaching the plug-and-socket connector, the spacing of the contact chambers has to be more and more reduced. This problem was previously solved in the prior art in that the smallest possible grid is produced between the contact pins, in which both the spacings between the contact chambers and the diameter of the contact pins have been reduced. The consequence of this is that a large number of O-rings have to be used, and these also have to be very small, assembly of which is difficult and time consuming.
An object of the present invention is to make possible a fluid-tight electrical connection with a high number of contacts per unit of area which can be assembled more easily and more quickly.